


Shadows of the Past

by WotanAnubis



Category: Crusader Kings 2 (Video Game), Original Work
Genre: Claustrophobia, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 09:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18466486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WotanAnubis/pseuds/WotanAnubis
Summary: In which visions of the future are shadows of the past.





	Shadows of the Past

**Author's Note:**

> I wouldn't say this is _Crusader Kings II_ fanfic, exactly, but this was pretty heavily inspired by that game.

Cynethryth awoke with a start, sweating and shivering, blood pounding in her veins. She stared wide-eyed into the gloom of the dawn. There were wooden walls all around her, pressing down on her. Fire blazed in her mind and screams filled her ears. Giants loomed over her, their axes dripping with blood, their eyes dark pits under their helmets.

Cynethryth felt someone touch her. She looked down and for one terrible moment saw some stranger lying in bed with her. She almost screamed, but then she recognised the wild woman. It was Saga, her wife.

Drawing a deep, trembling breath, Cynethryth forced herself to calm down. There were no giants, there was no fire. Nobody was advancing on her with a bloody axe. It'd just been the same old nightmare again. Saga was here. She was _safe_.

The walls were still too close and getting closer. Cynethryth kept breathing heavily, forcing as much air until her lungs as she could before the walls suffocated her. It was fine. This was their cottage. Saga was here. Nothing was going to happen.

The walls loomed over her anyway, threatening to imprison her, and there wasn't a thing she could do about it. Cynethryth slipped from her bed and started grabbing at her clothes. She needed air. There wasn't enough air in here. Not for her. If she'd just get outside, she'd feel better. If she could just get her clothes on.

She was taking too long to get dressed. If she'd just calmed down, she'd get dressed faster. But she couldn't calm down. It would slow her down too much.

When she was finally dressed, Cynethryth fought down the blind, animal urge to bolt out of one of the doors. She forced herself to sit next to bed. Saga slept peacefully, her face untroubled by any nightmares at all. Cynethryth leaned in and kissed her wife's forehead as lightly as she could. She didn't want her to wake up just yet.

Cynethryth staggered to her feet and the walls were back. She fled.

The cottage stood at the outskirts of the village, near the forest. Cynethryth and Saga had both preferred it that way. It was a simple one-room hut, that was just barely big enough for the both of them to live in. But it still had two doors, which even Cynethryth had to admit was one door too many. She'd insisted on those two doors anyway. She couldn't stand to be in any kind of room that had only one exit. Every time the giants came at her in her nightmares she was alone in a room with only one door, and it was the one the giants came through.

The air was cold and Cynethryth breathed it in gratefully. It felt like ice in her chest and she didn't care. She was outside and there were no walls anywhere. For a moment she considered what to do. She could just wait here. Saga would probably wake up soon enough and they'd have breakfast and the day would begin and the night - with all its nightmares - would end.

But the day would end, too. The night would be back. And her mind fill up again with fire and giants and screams.

No. No, she needed more than just Saga and a good breakfast.

Cynethryth left the village and her cottage behind her and headed into the forest. Before long, trees surrounded her on all sides and loomed above her head, but she could deal with them. They were just trees. She was still out in the open. She could run any which way she pleased.

The forest was old and familiar. She wandered through them ever since she'd been a little girl. She was always running away from the village. She couldn't quite remember why. Probably it'd been because of the nightmares. She couldn't remember not having them, so she must've had them back then, too.

She'd grown up knowing the forest. She knew all its trees, and all its plants. She'd learned which ones she could eat, which ones healed, which ones took away pain, which ones forced someone to vomit, and which ones killed. She'd never meant to become a healer. It'd just sort of happened to her.

Cynethryth picked flowers as she went. They didn't have any particular effect on the body, as far as she knew, but they looked pretty. By the time she reached the statue, she'd gathered enough to make into a crown.

The statue stood beneath a vast oak. The oak was ancient, yet somehow the statue managed to feel older than the tree. It was Freya, carved from wood, beautiful and proud. This was her forest, it seemed to say. This was her land.

It was said that the statue was so beautiful that Freya herself had been impressed by it and had come down to sleep with the person who'd carved it. Cynethryth wasn't sure she believed that. Oh, she was willing to believe Freya might show an interest in someone capable of creating something so beautiful. She just wasn't willing to believe the Goddess would be interested in the kind of person who'd then brag about it afterwards.

Cynethryth stepped forward and placed the flower crown on Freya's head. It wasn't much of an offering, but then she didn't ask for much. She just wanted someone to listen.

She sat down on the ground. The earth was cold and wet, but it didn't bother her. Freya stood over her, her unmoving wooden face somehow reassuring.

"I had the nightmares again," she said. " _Again_. Fire and giants. I always thought they were Surtr's folk. Figured that Ragnarok was coming and someone decided to send me visions of it."

Cynethryth drew a deep breath. She didn't want to say what she was going to say next.

"They're not giants, are they?" she said. "They're men. I was just small."

"Yeah, probably."

Cynethryth felt someone kneel behind her, felt their arms around her body. She relaxed into Saga's embrace.

"Knew I'd find you here," Saga said. "You know how much I hate it when I wake up in an empty bed."

"I know," said Cynethryth. "Sorry."

"Ah, it's fine. Sometimes you gotta leave, I know," said Saga. "It's just how it is."

Saga kissed her on the cheek. Cynethryth smiled. It'd be nice to just get up and go home. Or lie down and let Saga kiss her some more. But she wasn't about to turn back now.

"My nightmares aren't visions, are they?" Cynethryth said.

"I don't know," said Saga. "They might be."

"They'd be visions of my past then," said Cynethryth.

"Could be," said Saga.

"You know, you're not normally this evasive," said Cynethryth.

"Sorry," said Saga. "But I've never actually seen your nightmares. I've only ever heard you describe them. Fire and giants and screams, you know."

"And a room I can't escape," said Cynethryth. She sighed. "I think... I think maybe they're not giants. I think they might be raiders."

Saga stiffened. It was only a for a split second, but Cynethryth noticed it anyway. She knew her wife far too well to miss it.

"They're probably raiders," Saga said. "And, yeah, they're probably the ones who took you."

Cynethryth breathed in carefully. There it was. She ought to feel something. Angry. Betrayed. Maybe shocked. There was none of that. Instead she was calm. Relieved.

"So when did they tell you?" Cynethryth asked.

"A couple of years before we got married," Saga said. "When it was obvious we were getting really serious, some of the elders took me aside and filled me in some stuff."

"And you didn't tell me," Cynethryth stated.

"Didn't feel like it was my place," said Saga. "I'm still not sure I should be the one telling you now."

"No," said Cynethryth. "It could only be you."

Saga chuckled. "Well, thanks, I guess. But you'll forgive me if I'm a bit fuzzy on the details. That particular raid happened before I was born."

"I forgive you," said Cynethryth.

"Thanks," said Saga.

"So where am I from then?" Cynethryth asked.

"Where you're really from is here," said Saga. She sighed. "But you were taken from Mercia. You're a princess. Or so they tell me."

"A princess," said Cynethryth.

"Yep."

Cynethryth stared at Freya's statue and found no answers there. She looked up at the ancient oak sheltering them, but there was no help there either.

Princess Cynethryth of Mercia. She lived in a tiny, wooden one-room hut. She made her living wandering the forest for herbs while her wife wandered the forest looking for prey. She was nobody important. No, that wasn't true. There were people living in the village who wouldn't still have their parents or a spouse or a child if it hadn't been for her potions. She was important to them. But outside of the village she was nobody.

Princess Cynethryth of Mercia.

She tried imagine what that meant. Expensive clothes. Gold goblets. Jewelled crosses. Stone buildings. But that was all just stuff. Stuff didn't mean anything.

"They must have wanted to ransom me," Cynethryth said at last.

"Yeah, that was the plan, apparently," said Saga. "But your father didn't want to pay up. So we just sort of kept you. Or they did."

"He wasn't my father," said Cynethryth.

"What makes you say that?" Saga asked.

"My father would have paid the ransom."

"Uh, I don't..." Saga began. "Oh. _Oh._ Right, yeah, I get it. He gave up the right to call himself your father when he couldn't be bothered to pay for you, right? Because his own flesh and blood should be worth more to him than some gold?"

"Exactly," Cynethryth said. "I knew you'd get there. Eventually."

"Well, we can't all be some sophisticated Princess, can we?"

"I'm not a Princess," said Cynethryth. "There might have been a Princess Cynethryth, but she's not me. The Norns had a better fate in store for me."

"Really? Better? I mean, you have all those nightmares, and..."

Cynethryth turned in Saga's embrace and kissed her. "Princess Cynethryth would have never married you. She wouldn't even know you existed. So I obviously got the better deal."

"Even with the nightmares?" Saga asked.

"Even with the nightmares," said Cynethryth. She kissed her again. "I love you."

"And I love you," Saga replied. "And I'd also love some breakfast right about now. Chasing you through the forest first thing in the morning got me pretty hungry."

"Hmm," said Cynethryth. "I'm feeling quite the appetite myself."

Cynethryth smiled suggestively. Saga rolled her eyes, but didn't resist when her wife pulled her down onto the ground.


End file.
